My DD is now novice and I have never had an opportunity to see a judges score sheet. What exactly are dancers marked on and how do they lose marks? Any suggestions on where I could find a sample of a score sheet. We never know what marks are lost or areas she can inprove on in a competition.

8 Replies to question about judges score sheets

Looking at a judge's sheet would not help you. The only info on them is the level, i.e. novice, beginner; age group i.e. under 10 years, 12 years; the dance i.e. fling, sword. The judge then fills in the dancers' numbers & gives them a score. Rarely a judge will put on a comment, usually in some sort of heiroglyphic shorthand. These comments are only for that judge as some type of reminder & are never to be passed on to teachers, parents or dancers.
To know what your dancer needs to work on to improve requires discussion with their instructor. If there is a workshop following the competition they may then get some feedback from that particular judge. Usually the dancer will find out that they need to work on exactly the same thing their teacher has been telling them all along....

I wish that we did get our scores back....that way we could see what we need to work on! I know that in other dance(ballet, jazz etc..) they give the score sheets so at least you know where you did great or not so great!
Ever judge scores differently and picks up very different things so in the end it totally depends on the judge! It would be soooo nice to see the score sheets.!
How can one better one's self if you have no clue what to better yourself on!!

They would have to revise the method by which the judge uses the score sheet to make them of any use what-so-ever. As Offkilter said, there is only the score and maybe a comment to remind the judge what dancer was which, like "blue kilt" or "glasses". Many times they don't write any comments at all.

the other type of comment they may write is if the dancer kicked their sword or something like that.

In highland the judges tally the score in their head, combining the three major areas of judging - deportment, technique and timing, and then if there are any minus 5's for example. All they write on the card is 68 for example which means nothing to anyone but the judge. If you want comments from a judge, as others have said, attend workshops wherever possible and I know here we have a festival competition where the judge dictates comments for each dancer to a writer and those comments are handed to the dancer after the awards presentation. I know these were a great help to me in the past.

The sheet that Tazzimum has listed is not the same sheet that I would write my marks on. This is a scrutineering sheet showing the final results for the day. As she said, it shows the points allocated to the top six awards. These are added for each dance to calculate the aggregate.

The comments so far are excellent and correct. My judges sheets would mean nothing to you and the comments (a hodge podge of shorthand) would be useless to the dancer.

If you require feedback,hopefully your instructor attends some of the competitions so he/she can look at the standard of your dancer compared to the other dancers in the group and look for areas that need improvement.